Thanks Zardoz. I had worked on this issue several months back. After dissecting the player, checking out the microswitches (which were called "DW DET" S1 and "OC DET" S2, etc. I was unable to find any obvious problem. So I next assumed that the player needed a firmware refresh (or update). I purchased a firmware disc, actually an electronic image that I could burn to CD ... from an Internet seller. Filename that I had was a JVC_firmware_WNM874 kit which contained jvcStep1_U2XVSA70-04B, a folder which contains the "JVC_DVD" required folder. I was able to use this CD-ROM to update the firmware on the XV-SA70. The bad news was that after the DVD player read the firmware disc and seemed to have done it successfully, upon self-restart it again demanded a disc to be inserted. I did this over and over again. My guess at the time was that maybe it's a 2-volume CD-ROM firmware flash, and that I was missing part 2. I tried asking on the Internet but I got no answer ... however I did get a refund for the CD-ROM image that I had paid for; they were nice about it. Wanting to move on (regretfully), I went ahead and purchased a brand new JVC XV-N330B DVD player. The good news is that this player has a lot of desirable features, including that it should auto-convert video formats for play and output (i.e. NTSC/PAL). The one downside that sticks out for me is that the remote control that comes with it is really bad, in that it is so cramped -- small buttons, close together, hard to read. I really liked the remote that came with the XV-SA70 and I'm going to see whether I can use that one to control the XV-N330. This happened a few months back, I've been wanting to get around to writing an update here. I'm going to junk that XV-SA70 but I may retain some of the parts, for example the actual DVD mechanism. Regards, Larry.